Even people fond of David Solomon acknowledge that his equilibrium state is what most of us would consider tense. The voice of the Goldman Sachs chief executive is perpetually hoarse, as if he has permanently worn it out from screaming.
“When I told him, ‘You got to stick your hand in the candy bowl,’ he just gave me this look like, ‘Why would I do that? How is that productive?’” recalls someone involved in the effort. The exercise did not succeed in endearing Solomon to the Goldman rank and file. “He would stomp around the floors in a really purposeful way, and he’d find the two or three people he knew,” the banker says. “He’d knock on their door and they would get scared. The whole thing didn’t work.
that he flew them seven times in seven weeks to places such as Barbuda and the Bahamas, even as he was reprimanding workers for not logging more hours in the office.“How do you do, fellow kids?” meme In other words, at Goldman Sachs, Solomon’s sins are considered more unforgivable than contributing to the near collapse of the global economy. Strategic mistakes that might have been tolerated under a more respected regime are being read as disastrous, a direct result of his personality. Solomon is blamed for mismanaging a push into new territory – banking for relatively ordinary customers – that has lost $US3 billion and counting since 2020.
In finance, words such as cachet can be euphemisms for compensation. “If you are a ‘Master of the Universe’,” one former executive told me, “the only proof that you are a Master of the Universe is how much money you get paid.” And last year, pay sagged around the firm. The bank dispensed $US2.5 billion less in compensation and benefits than it had the year before, even though the head count had gone up 10 per cent.
Solomon went to work for firms such as Bear Stearns and Drexel Burnham Lambert instead and distinguished himself in Las Vegas dealmaking, impressing billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson and, eventually, Goldman Sachs. In 1999, the bank hired him as a partner – a side-door entry that Solomon’s longer-tenured colleagues never let him forget.
. Solomon could also be sensitive about his image. After a reporter described him as “paunchy” in a 2011 article, Solomon confronted her. Grabbing the fleshy inches covering his midsection, he demanded, “Do you think this is a paunch?”Solomon was known to call the partners he disagreed with “idiots” and even curse them out.
Business Business Latest News, Business Business Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: FinancialReview - 🏆 2. / 90 Read more »
Source: FinancialReview - 🏆 2. / 90 Read more »